Capitalism and Popular Consumption

Published:PravdaNo. 70, July 20, 1912.

      Signed:B.B..

      Published according to thePravdatext.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,[1975],

      Moscow,Volume 18,

      pages224-226.Translated:Stepan ApresyanTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Recentlythe French magazineLa Revue

scientifique[1]published data on the production ofmargarinein various countries. Those data were an additional
reminder of the fact noticed long ago that the diet of the people
deteriorates as capitalism develops.

Aseveryone knows, margarine is fat (from which stearine has been
removed) processed by a special method. From it an artificial substance is
made, known as margarine butter.

Margarineproduction in the principal European countries has assumed
very large proportions. Germany produces 12.5 million poods of it per year,
Britain, 7.5 million poods, and so on.

Margarineis cheaper than real butter. Butter is too costly for the
vast majority of the population in the capitalist countries. The workers
earn so little that they have to buy cheap, low-grade, substitute food
products. And yet the workers are the chief consumers. There are millions
of workers, and only hundreds of capitalists. And so the output of cheap
substitutes is growing daily and hourly, along with the unheard-of luxury
of a handful of millionaires.

Thewealth of the bourgeoisie is growing. So are the poverty and want
of the proletariat and of the mass of small proprietors, peasants, artisans
and petty traders, who are being ruined.

Remarkablyenough, margarine consumption is highest in the very
countries which are particularly famous as producers of large quantities of
the finest natural butter. To find out how great the consumption of
margarine is, it isnecessary to divide the whole amount of margarine produced in the country
concerned (adding import and subtracting export) by the number of
inhabitants.

Itappears that the greatest consumer of margarine is Denmark—16,4 kilograms (about one pood) a year per in
habitant. Next comes Norway—15 pounds, Germany—7.5 pounds, etc.

Denmarkis the richest country for butter output. Danish butter—real
butter—ranks among the finest grades. The world’s biggest and richest
city, London (population, including that of the suburbs, about six
million), prefers Danish butter to any other, and pays the highest price
for it.

Danishwell-to-do peasants, but above all the Danish capitalists, make
a good deal of money from the butter trade. And yet Denmark is the world’s
biggest consumer of substitute butter, margarine!

Whatis the explanation?

Itis very simple. The vast majority of the Danish population, like
that of any other capitalist country, consists of workers and propertyless
peasants. They cannot afford real butter. Even the middle peasants in
Denmark, being in need of money, sell abroad the butter they produce on
their farms and buy the cheap margarine for themselves. The wealth of the
Danish capitalists is growing, and so are the poverty and want of the
Danish workers and peasants.

Thesame thing is happening here in Russia. Very long ago, some forty
years back, when it became fashionable to set up cheese dairies and artels
in the countryside, Engelhardt, a democratic writer, noted that the
peasants, being in need of money, sold their milk and butter while their
children starved to death.

Thatfact has been noted many times since then. Cheese production is
growing, the production of milk for sale is growing, and the few well-to-do
peasants and the merchants are becoming rich, while the poor become poorer
still. The children of poor peasants, left without milk, die in enormous
numbers. Child mortality in Russia is incredibly high.

Fairlyoften milk is sold to cheese dairies, from which the peasants
then getskimmed milkfor their own consumption.

Therich have the profits from growing production and trade, while the
workers and peasants have margarine and skimmed milk. Such is capitalist
reality, which liberal and official scholars are at such pains to
embellish.

[1]LeRevue scientifique—a periodical founded in Paris in 1863.